Imaging Expo Preview

For years, the biannual MD Expo has satisfied the biomedical community with its value-based information-sharing, continuing education, and vendor networking events. Yet, even with a built-in imaging focus of about one-fifth of the total programming content, MD Publishing President and Founder John Krieg felt like it just wasn’t enough for those biomeds who want to go right into imaging discussions.

“We tried to provide basic imaging courses for MD Expo, but people kept asking for more imaging classes at the show, and we couldn’t satisfy that because we had to take care of the biomedical classes,” Krieg said.

For years, DITEC, the Diagnostic Imaging Technical Education Center, would hold a very well-attended annual meeting in Ohio, but when the company discontinued hosting the show, “it left this huge void in the industry for imaging people to have a place to call home,” he said.

“There was literally nowhere to go,” Krieg said. “The imaging-specialized engineers don’t go to RSNA; there’s no state meetings for them.”

Krieg turned his focus toward creating an event designed specifically for imaging professionals in the biomedical space. Its inaugural, 40-booth incarnation in Indianapolis yielded 225 attendees from a cross-section of high-end, management-level professionals, administrators, imaging service directors and technicians.

Not bad for a first effort, he thought — but in year two, he expects the show to be even bigger.

“We learned a lot and that set the foundation,” Krieg said. “This year we’re going to increase the volume.”

“In addition to networking opportunities and vendor marketing,” said MD Publishing Vice President Kristin Leavoy, “The Imaging Expo offers education that is specific to imaging professionals and is approved for 24 continuing education credits by the American Society of Radiologic Technologist(ASRT).”

With mid- to senior-level classes that will connect guests with leading speakers in the field, Imaging Expo will help attendees earn or maintain professional certifications, all while keeping the focus on the topics that are relevant, timely, and drive patient outcomes as well as cost savings.

“We wanted people not to look at this show as a mini-MD Expo,” Leavoy said. “We wanted it to have its own identity. We fine-tuned the education for this year so that it would be specific to imaging professionals.”

Most importantly, Krieg said, “We’re providing a festive environment.”

To kick things off, Wednesday night will host a welcome reception sponsored by Radiological Service Training Institute (RSTI), and featuring live entertainment, food, and beverages. Thursday evening is the “Grand Slam at the Imaging Expo” event, in which Imaging Expo guests will head across the street to the Coors Light Outfield at Victory Field, the home of the Indianapolis Indians, the Pittsburgh Pirates’ minor-league, Triple-A affiliate ball club. There’s an hour-and-a-half of tailgating before the game starts and then guests can enjoy the game from a block of seats in the outfield, courtesy of sponsors TriMedX, Axess Ultrasound and Medxcel Careers.

Krieg promised that Hoosier hospitality will be on display.

“Indianapolis is a central hub for not only the Midwest, but the country,” he said. “It’s got a great downtown, a vibrant restaurant, bar and nightlife scene. The host hotel was built for the Super Bowl 10 years ago, and they just had the NCAA Final Four in Indianapolis.”

At $100 apiece, Imaging Expo registration is inexpensive for three days of valuable education and interaction — but vendors get unlimited VIP passes to provide free admission for their guests.

“If you call a vendor, they will send you a VIP pass, and then you can register for free online,” Krieg said.

Jason Smith, Marketing Director at Medxcel, an Indianapolis-based company that provides shared services to its subsidiaries Axess Ultrasound and TriMedx, said that the first Imaging Expo exceeded his expectations for gathering “a good mixture of end-users and clinical engineers” of medical imaging equipment. He believes the second act will offer just as great a chance for professionals in the field to connect with educational and employment opportunities, as well as to have the conversations that drive new business.

“Last year when Imaging Expo was brand new, we loved the fact that it was in our backyard,” Smith said. “Since these shows tend to draw regionally, it was a good opportunity to have a presence and be a reminder that we are ready to help with any of their imaging needs whenever they’re ready for it.”

In terms of professional development, however, Medxcel is also one of a number of Imaging Expo sponsors whose subject-matter experts will lend their knowledge and understanding to educational sessions at the show. Axess Ultrasound’s presentation on “A Patient-Centered Approach to Probe Management,” by Bob Broschart, will focus on the cost savings that can be realized through preventive maintenance of imaging equipment while also producing better patient outcomes. TriMedx also has a presentation on “Effective Asset Management for Building a Best-in-Class Imaging Department” which will not only address asset management but other areas within your imaging department that will lead to greater efficiency and higher returns.

“The exposure and being able to participate in the educational sessions is definitely a huge highlight for us along with the opportunity to sponsor the Grand Slam event,” Smith said. “Since we have representation from Axess Ultrasound, TriMedx along with our recruiting team, we are really looking forward to the opportunity for networking, new relationships and the exposure. They [MD Publishing] took a lot of feedback from last year’s show, and it sounds like they have a good lineup of presenters and events this year.”

RSTI President Dale Cover said that the education offered at the Imaging Expo is the principal reason his company is involved with the show. RSTI had a history of operating imaging symposia like the Imaging Expo, Cover said, but the effort expended in putting on such shows diverted too much attention away from its core business.

“Our specialty is teaching people how to maintain medical imaging equipment,” Cover said. “We’ve always believed this is the prime show for us to attend because of our focus.”

“MD Publishing as a group is very good at putting on shows,” he said. “We truly know there’s a need for it.”

RSTI is demonstrating its focus regarding hands-on imaging services management with a trio of presentations: “Taking Your HTM Program to the Next Level with Imaging Asset Management,” a capital asset management talk that Cover will deliver himself; “Diagnosing Problems in a PACS Network Using Software Emulators,” a DICOM-troubleshooting software simulation seminar; and a CRES preparatory seminar designed to mentally prepare imaging professionals for the Certified Radiology Equipment Specialists (CRES) exam.

“From the capital asset management side, I’m looking for managers to come so they can learn some of the techniques that we can provide to help them grow their department,” Cover said. “I’m also looking to inspire the biomeds to take on the projects. We need a constant flow of people to keep coming up through the ranks in our industry.”

The Imaging Expo also offers networking opportunities to help promote that recruitment among biomeds attending the show, Cover said. Unlike other professional gatherings, the focus of the Imaging Expo is entirely on medical imaging.

“Everybody’s got their stories about ‘how I dealt with this’ or ‘how I dealt with that,’ ” he said. “The networking opportunities of getting people together from a small niche industry gives them a concentrated environment where that’s their focus.”

For RSTI, the Imaging Expo also represents an opportunity to connect with people from throughout the industry on the occasion of its 30-year anniversary. To celebrate, the company will sponsor the Welcome Reception with a recognition of its three decades in the business.

Many Imaging Expo attendees will be interested in learning about how to achieve the accreditation requirements mandated by the Medicare Improvements for Patients and Providers Act of 2008 (MIPPA) for advanced diagnostic imaging centers. “Although such accreditation is technically voluntary,” said Dina Hernandez, Program Manager of CT/MR Accreditation Department, American College of Radiology (ACR), “much of it is required for sites to get reimbursed.”

Hernandez is delivering a talk that will provide an overview of the accreditation process, the available modalities for accreditation, and the process and requirements of obtaining the accreditation for each of them, including the clinical and the physics portions, if possible.

“The MIPPA mandate is new, but ACR accreditation has been around a long time,” Hernandez said. “We’ve been accrediting facilities since 1987, so we have the experience. We are the gold standard. We can help these facilities get the accreditation that they need.”

That’s not to say that Hernandez doesn’t expect to learn from the experience herself, especially when it comes to the concerns of the leaders and decision-makers who will be in the room.

“We’ve had our modality programs in place for a long time; we have a lot of experience, and we really hope that at an expo like this, a two-hour presentation and a roundtable, they can give questions and I’ll be able to help them or at least head them in the direction that they need,” she said.

Without the framework of an expo environment, Hernandez said she doesn’t know “what other opportunities that they would have” to get their specific questions answered in a free discussion environment, much less to put it in the appropriate context of the conversation.

“Accreditation is a team effort,” Hernandez said. “It’s not just a tech; it’s not just a medical physicist. I think the more buy-in from management, the more understanding that there is, the better the process flows for the sites.”

Similarly, Jason Launders, Director of Operations of the Health Devices Group at the ECRI Institute, hopes his presentation, “Dose Creep – an insidious issue in digital radiography,” will keep guests talking about one of “ERCI’s Top 10 Hazards.”

“Dose creep” is when the dose that patients receive from routine radiographic studies gradually creeps up over time, Launders said.

“You’re going to get better pictures if you get the dose up,” he said. “Your radiologist is far less likely to complain that the images are below par if the technologist very slowly dials up the parameters.”

Even though radiography is not a high-dose imaging technique, he said, “there are an awful lot of radiographic exams done every day, and a lot of patients get a lot of X-rays, especially patients with chronic diseases, including children.”

Previous to the emergence of an International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) standard that allows patients to more accurately track their dose over time, every manufacturer of digital devices previously had their own ways of measuring dose, Launders said. But even by virtue of being formulated, “by itself the IEC standard is not going to do much.”

“People have got to use it,” he said. “They’ve got to make sure that these things are being tracked. If you don’t actively track these dose numbers, they’re going to creep up. I intend to give people practical tools that they can go home with and make sure that their hospitals and imaging centers are using the tools that are available to them.”

Although the 2015 Imaging Expo will be Launders’ first, he reported that his ECRI colleague returned from the 2014 event “singing its praises because it was addressing that gap in the audience” connecting imaging leadership with clinical and engineering staff.

“Biomedical engineers we see as very important people in the whole health care vein because they’re the people who basically look after all these devices that are depended on day after day after day,” he said. “The managers don’t see the gory details that go on inside these devices.”

Moreover, Launders said, the “cross-contamination of good ideas” that comes from the opportunity to present a two-hour-long session on his chosen topic offers a chance to go into depth on the issue and to get people to share their experiences, which often yields valuable results.

“Most times you get 10 minutes,” he said. “Two hours is a monster of a time. It’s less a conference and more an educational seminar; symposium is probably a better term to use. I’m excited about going.”

To Attend the Imaging Expo at no charge visit www.theimagingexpo.com for more information.

This article was originally published on Medical Dealer.